Etymology of Hysteria

                     

By D. Imani Muhammad

Eytomology: The orgin of words, historical developments and semantic  shifts.   It looks at how words come in, and out of language,  how spellings, and meanings of that word change throughout time.

I first learned about this in 2008 watching a metaphysical lecture at the time. I found it interesting. Throughout my life I've heard words take on new meaning. Example, Gay. When I was growing up it meant happy. Now, it's references people who are homosexual. 

Words change in meaning to fit the current state of the culture.

Another word is Hysteria.  

The dictionary classifies the meaning of the word as: "an uncontrollable outburst of extreme emotion or fear, a dated medical diagnosis, and a state of group panic." (Dictionary.com)

What if I told you it was associated with a woman's,  "wandering womb".   It was only associated with women whose womb moved, that it would send them into bouts of hysteria.  Women's bodies weren't a issue of figuring out and understanding at the time. It was looked at as more of a nuisance.  

Yes, they actually believed a woman's uterus "wandered". I wonder where it was going.

When you look at the etymological meaning, and then research the history, you find..well let me show you what I found, and let's see if we come to the same conclusion.

The Etymological Meaning

Considered to be an excess of emotions that referred to a temporary state of mind. It was believed during the 1800's that women were predisposed to mental and behavioral conditions. In the 1900's it shifted to a mental illness, so much so that Sigmund Freud, and Jean-Martin Charcot dedicated research to the topic. They viewed it as a minor pelvic congestion. 

In the Kahun papyrus, the Egyptians would record abnormalities among women linking the behavior to, "a wandering uterus".   The Greeks would later label it as hysteria. 

The treatment during this time was doctors using strong smelling substances on a woman's vulva for it to return to the proper position or swallowing or smelling unsavory herbs to encourage the uterus to move back into position. 

With the influence of Christianity in the Latin West, in the 13th century the understanding of hysteria would be altered medically, and publicly. Under St. Augustine, it became known now as sin, with a treatment of amulets, exorcism and prayers.  

Constantine the African in his work said it was a cause of amor heroycus, "a powerful, obsessive form of lovesickness or unfulfilled sexual desire that was thought to cause physical illness and mental madness."

In the 1800's, to medically assist women relieve  pressure in that area, doctors would manually massage the women.  This would end up being time consuming, so a British gentleman, Joseph Mortimer Grandville, in 1880 invented an electrical vibrator to lessen the time for the massages, increasing clients and profits for them.   And yes, it is the type of massage you may be thinking about. They massaged the women to an orgasm. 

Movie, "Hysteria"

In the 1900's, these devices where now being advertised for home use. The doctors now had an increased clientele, and vibrators to do the job instead of their fingers. Electricity in homes was common now,  making the shift more easy. 

The vibrator was sold through Sears, Roebuck & Co., with no shame, right along side sewing machines, beauty ads, and blenders. The target was women. 

Women were not looked at as sexual beings, with sexual needs, so the language when advertised had to coded. Promising beauty and vitality and relieving tension. Remember this was just a minor pelvic congestion.

Not a contraption I would want 

anywhere near me.

To sell the vibrator so openly coded language had to be used. Saying it was good for the whole family was one way the language was coded.

Around the 1920's, there was now an issue of selling vibrators, and shipping them through the USPS.  Comstock Laws  were now in place that sexual devices could not be shipped through U.S. mail. Vibrators were shipped in brown paper packaging. Some packages got through undetected. 

That law is still in effect.

Early pornographic films began to use them. It was hard for the public to ignore, that the advertisement of vibrators ceased. 

The acknowledgement of women just being sexually frustrated was still not addressed, and they were labeled as crazy until World War 1.  When the soldiers returned home from war, the military noticed the same shaking that the women were going through, the men were going through. The men  also went through a paralysis.  The military not wanting to label the men unmanly had to restructure a new term for the soliders.

They couldn't label it hysteria because the men didn't possess a womb, so it had to be named something else.  For the men it was known as Shell Shock.  They were seen as being under extreme stress.  This was the break between gender and diagnosis.  The term was known now as Post-Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD).

Hysteria was first taken out of the DSM in 1952 because the term hysteria was outdated, falling out of scientific favor. Meaning they didn't have proof for their claim. 

In 1968, it was put back into the DSM-2 as hysterical Neurosis. The medical establishment needed to keep the narrative going. This "illness" was split into two sub-types, conversion type and dissociative  type. 

Conversion is physical paralysis or blindness caused by anxiety.

Dissociative was altercations in consciousness.

 It wouldn't be until 1980 that Psychiatry would take the term Hysterical Neurosis out of the DSM-3.

If you have followed my History of Marriage blog, I showed that when the European came to "America", it was actually called Turtle Island, and discovered beautiful copper toned women, that they neglected their own women chasing after the Indigenous ones wanting to marry into the tribe or assaulting them.

What was initially women who just needed intimacy, turned into women being treated with a mental illness. A physical misalignment.  

Men who endured stress, paralysis, PTSD,  could not be labeled as hysterical, they were simply over stressed.  As time went on, due to women's environment of stress, abuse, they still were looked at as crazy. Women were never viewed as being human, or having a natural  sexual impulse or desire. They were just a piece of flesh, walking.

With Indigenous women who were already on the land, this was unheard of. There was a respect, a unity among the men and women. This unity would slowly dwindle through the decades. 

Sexual health and reproduction among all women would end up being an issue, even when the Indigenous would have to seek medical care among the Europeans who came to America as doctors. Indigenous were treated like lab rats for a gynecological exam.

Medical science just published an article on women experiencing the signs of a heart attack differently than men.  They were just able to map the nerve endings of the clitoris.  Women still get gaslit when they complain of pain. 

Women may have been clinically unlabeled as crazy for feeling amorous, stressed, but our body autonomy is still not taken serious by many.